


Second Chances Don't Grow on Trees

by AngeNoir



Series: In the Future, Things Get Better (and yet remain the same) [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, Overworking, Post-Nuclear War, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2229018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obadiah is dead, and good riddance. After trying to pull Tony's heart regulator out, and disconnect the implant that allows Tony to regulate his heart pump (and all other electronics around him), Tony can honestly say he's happy that Obadiah's dead. Unfortunately, there's still trouble on the horizon. The Emperor knows that Tony has a piece of tech that could subdue pretty much all of space, and there are still more bad nights than good. Add in the fact that Steve has finally agreed to try a relationship with Tony but doesn't want to do anything in public, finding out that the local cafe owner was actually a secret government agent sent to keep an eye on him, and discovering that his sorta-adopted nephew is embroiled in secrets, and Tony... Tony could use a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances Don't Grow on Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Can I just say I did not know how exhausting teaching little children would be, so I overestimated how much I'd be able to do when I came home from teaching?
> 
> I hope this story still fits and works the way I want it too...
> 
> Playlist is done by the wonderful [Panna Marchewka](http://little-miss-carrot.tumblr.com) and can be found [here](http://little-miss-carrot.tumblr.com/post/96086129178/fanmix-for-the-story-second-chances-dont-grow-on).
> 
> This SHOULD be a stand-alone story, but it may help you understand both the world and the main conflict in this story a bit more if you read the first installment (To Take A Chance Again). If it doesn't stand alone, let me know which parts are confusing and I'll fix that up!

Tony let out a sigh as he exited the room, loosening his tie and stepping smartly against the marble and jade floors. It had been a long while since he’d found himself on the Asian continent, and he had forgotten how much the government buildings here reached back to mimic the past. He was tired, he was upset because it had been five days and Steve was still not talking to him, and he just wanted to go home.

“You good, boss?”

Tony nodded sharply to Happy, but didn’t turn. He just wanted to head home, wanted to retreat into his mansion in the Catskill Mountains and pray he didn’t drag the eye of the Emperor onto his person. He really… really didn’t need anything more coming crashing down on his head right now. Obadiah’s betrayal and death and the subsequent disarray of his company was more than enough. Now he had to actually care about what was happening with the board and take a more public role once again.

Then again, laying low hadn’t protected him, since the person who suggested he lay low and who had apparently put a hit out for him were the same person. Maybe he should have a more visible role, especially since Steve…

Tony felt the familiar coldness seep from his chest, only this time it seemed to burn his belly at the same time. Steve. Steve was the one survivor of his father’s VT-R4Y experiment, the super-soldier program, in collaboration with three other scientists. Tony, as a child, had poked his nose everywhere, anywhere, and had gotten burned often enough to notice when he was getting close to something really interesting. He didn’t know much about the project, as he really was just a kid when it happened, but he knew enough – and, as he grew up, took an interest in the failed projects his father did over the years. Partly because Howard Stark was a legend, was the man that gave the Empire their advanced weaponry and technological wonders, and partly because Tony was tired of being compared to his father and wanted to know his father’s failures.

Steve had not been, and could never be, a failure.

Happy held the door open and Tony strode out of the courthouse, making his way to the luxury craft that was advanced enough to go into orbit for short periods if Tony wanted it to. Neither a disc shape nor a rounded triangle, the diamond-shaped craft with its sleek lines, red and gold trim, and darkened glass wasn’t a standard model, and he garnered more than his fair share of attention as he strode out of the highest court in the land, dressed impeccably and with dark shades hiding his eyes, and walked over to the craft. Happy pressed his hand to the door, letting JARVIS know to unlock it, and then Tony slid in the soft, supple seats in the back and began to undo his tie and waistcoat.

“Where to, boss?” Happy asked as he strapped himself in the pilot’s seat.

“S.I. Shanghai. Let’s see if I can pop in and get an idea of how much Obie – how much Stane messed shit up,” Tony said breezily.

“Will do,” Happy said easily. Tony didn’t know how he’d survive without the guy, even considering the fact that Pepper ended up leaving Tony for him. He couldn’t hold a grudge; he wasn’t half the man Happy was. Happy had put up with his adolescent shit, had protected Tony from multiple assassination and kidnapping attempts, and had been sincerely upset he’d lost Tony to the slavers, even when it hadn’t been Happy’s fault that Tony had been captured. “You wanna stop for something to eat, boss?”

Tony opened his mouth to dismiss it – he ate in sporadic patterns, in part because of his inability to reliably keep down food nowadays – but Happy wouldn’t have brought it up unless Happy himself was hungry. “Yeah, let’s swing for – what do they have in Shanghai?”

“I’ll find something, boss,” Happy said easily, pulling off of the dock and zipping through the flight lanes with practiced ease.

Tony leaned back against the soft seats and stared at the ceiling. He’d managed – just barely – to convince the Aristocratic Court that Obadiah Stane’s death had been necessary and an act of self-defense. It had taken a lot of dancing around what Stane had done to Tony, a lot of maneuvering around mentioning Steve or Peter’s presence at all, and even now Tony wasn’t sure he’d actually managed to convince everyone. He may not be in trouble for Stane’s death, but he had the Emperor’s eye on him again, and considering the fact that three years ago he had certainly soured his relationship with the Emperor by turning his company away from weapons-making and into energy and personal tech… Tony didn’t really need to give the Emperor reasons to look closely at his work and company.

And what had been that jibe at the end, about Stane having his heart in the right place and Tony ought to learn from Stane? It didn’t make sense in the context at all, and Tony worried at it silently as Happy slid into a fast food bay and proceeded to order for himself and Tony.

“Did you call Pepper?” Happy asked as he twisted in the pilot’s seat to hand Tony’s food back over the small divide between the cockpit and the luxury compartment.

Tony paused. “Should I? Didn’t you already?”

“I did, but she worries about you in her own way.”

“I should really call Rumiko,” Tony muttered under his breath. “She’s the one who figures out my shit. She’ll need to know our stock will plummet a bit after this, but that the head of the R&D department isn’t going to jail, so there’s chances we’ll recover.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Happy replied, expertly slotting into the flight lanes again and heading them towards S.I. Shanghai. Shanghai was, in fact, somewhat of a misnomer; though based in Shanghai, S.I. Shanghai was in fact the hub of all S.I. offices on Earth (S.I. Gamede was the hub of all S.I. offices on planetary colonies) and was the center of all activity that happened in S.I. Tony regularly made trips here when Rumiko Fujikawa called him up, though when Stane had been around he’d barely been called up more than once or twice a month. Before, he’d been thankful for the time to try and screw himself back together like a badly built automaton – now, he wondered what Stane had been doing here that he hadn’t wanted Tony to notice or see. For all that Tony detested the business, corporate side of S.I., he’d grown up knowing he’d take the reins of his family’s company at one point and so was thoroughly skilled in all manner of tasks necessary to keep a corporation this large running smoothly. He’d have noticed any tweaks Stane had made had he thought to keep an eye on Stane’s activities and invested more of his attention towards his company instead of fruitlessly chasing after his newest obsession – who now didn’t even want anything to do with him.

“Boss?”

Tony opened his eyes and blinked at Happy’s worried expression. Looking around, he saw that the luxury craft was docked and ready for his dismount, the familiar garage empty of anyone except the two of them. Smiling tiredly, he keyed open the compartment’s door and stepped out into the docking bay. “Sorry, Happy. Lost in thought.”

“He’ll come around, sir,” Happy murmured. “He was going to give you a chance. Let him come to terms with what happened.”

“No, he made his position on killers quite clear,” Tony sighed. “Moping about it isn’t going to be very productive. Let’s see what Stane did to my company.”

“If you say so, boss,” Happy replied with a soft sigh, stepping out and locking the craft down. “No one’s expecting you, are they?”

Tony shook his head as he strode towards the bay doors that would open to the top floors of his company. In this modern day and age, only small, rural cities didn’t have one hundred plus stories skyscrapers. Shanghai was the economic center of the Empire, and in this city, Tony would be hard-pressed to find a building that was in fact less than three hundred stories high. Stark Industries was in the top one hundred stories of a five-hundred story tall skyscraper – and that skyscraper was not in fact the tallest one in the sprawling Shanghai cityscape. His docking bay, however, was at the four-hundred and ninetieth story, as his offices, R&D labs, and personal floors were on the top ten of S.I.’s one hundred stories. His assistant in Shanghai, Ming Chen, blinked in surprise as Tony keyed open the upper office’s front doors and strode inside.

“Aro Stark! I apologize; I did not know your schedule would bring you here. What can I do for you today?”

“I want to go over the company’s finances and projects – every little bit of them. Send the data to my personal office. Is the board meeting today?”

Chen nodded, gesturing. “Your PA is within. It is nothing more than the standard, though I believe Stane’s death is requiring Mam Fujikawa’s personal attention today as the board searches for ways to recover from this.”

Tony huffed a little and made his way to the tube, shooting up in seconds to the four-hundred and ninety-eighth floor – the highest anyone, even him, could go on the general tube. Stepping out, he nodded sharply to the few bustling researchers that practically lived on this floor and the office workers he passed as he made his way to the boardroom.

His passkey took a bit to work, though that was probably because no one’s passkey was supposed to let them in to an active board meeting, and his key would have to undo those locks, and when the light finally turned green and the doors slid open, he stepped into the rounded room.

“—assurances on the Parker double-zero project, Rumiko?”

“All projects underneath Stane’s direction are—”

“Currently under review,” Tony interrupted. “As are all projects currently taking place in S.I. factories, laboratories, and even down to the media department. Congratulations; I am taking a more active role in this company since the last time I _didn’t_ , someone tried to kill me.” Stepping into the center of the room, he looked out at the holographic projections of the board members. “This is my company – it will always be so. We’re not riding the red line so closely that we can’t put a temporary hold on all projects at the moment. If Stane was trying to kill me and take my tech, I have reason to believe he was not exactly working with integrity in my company. As of this moment, I am going to personally go over the books and projects my company is involved in. Within a couple of days to a few weeks, most if not all of these projects will be released and continued. Should I find any other latent assassinators, well, I already defended myself in court this morning. I find it was fairly invigorating. I’d love the chance to do it again.”

There was silence, and Rumiko looked as surprised as everyone else in the room. Well, by everyone else, Tony really meant the holo-projections of his board who were situated in a circle around the middle, where generally speaking the finance and operations manager would give a report on the company’s progress. Stane had been that manager; with Stane gone, it was probably Stane’s second-in-command – if Tony’s investigation proved that Stane’s assistant was clean. Then one of the board members said indignantly, “Are you implying one of us knew of Stane’s plans and condoned them?”

Tony grinned a shark-like smile and said pleasantly, “Of course not, Arzu Roman. That would be slander, and you know I would never outright accuse anyone unless I found something suspicious. It’s a good thing I’m going to be personally combing through everything within a few short hours.”

It was another half an hour or so of listening to the board complain and bluster, Rumiko at his side as they placated (or, well, Rumiko placated; Tony grew up with corporate fighting and knew the best defense was a good offense, and he was well-skilled in using his tongue to be cutting) the directors until the end of the conference call, and the blinking out of each hologram.

Then Rumiko turned on him and folded her arms, tapping one elegant foot against the floor as she gave him a disapproving look. “In the future, I would be happy if you informed me ahead of time when you decide to barge in. Specifically since I had it all under control, and did not appreciate the save.”

“I know, Ru – you have everything under control. You contracted Pepper into keeping me under control. I was just in the neighborhood because of my trial, remember?” Tony said casually, pressing a kiss to her knuckles and then making his way out of the room. “I’ll be up in my personal office, reviewing the projects and finances. I’m serious about putting everything on hold – give everyone the day off, if you have to. Nothing moves – not production lines, not shipments, nothing.”

“Aro Stark, that will be a big financial blow to the company—”

“And the scandal of me nearly dying will recoup that blow soon enough. Nothing moves, Rumiko.” Tony walked into the private tube that took him to the second-to-the-top floor. The top floor of S.I.’s hundred floors was private quarters, a place for Tony to sleep if he decided he didn’t want to go to his penthouse in Shanghai. This private tube only linked the top five floors together, since they were all Tony’s private floors with a limited list of who could and couldn’t take the tube up to them.

In his office, Happy was already sitting there with their food. Tony let out a sigh. “Let’s figure this mess out, then, shall we?”

***

When the door opened early the next morning, Rumiko let out a short yelp at seeing Tony still sitting in his office chair, frowning at the reader in his hands. “What are you doing here?” she asked after a moment. Turning to set down the paperwork she had in her hands, she saw Happy sitting on the couch, dozing.

“What’s this Parker project?” Tony asked in lieu of answering.

Sighing, she set the paperwork down. “The Parker project is the remnants of a project kicked to us from Oscorp Industries.”

Tony frowned at the screen. “Oscorp deals in bio-genic improvement. We deal in straight tech, with minor forays into the creation of prosthetics and biotech. Nothing to enhance or better the human body in and of itself, not really, not since my father’s division was shut down. How’d we get tangled up with that?”

Rumiko shrugged and came over to Tony’s side, looking at the multiple screens that were up and scrolling through information. “Norman Osborn’s top scientist sabotaged the project five or six years ago to sell the secrets to the Sultanate, but their plane crashed due to the Azeri skirmish taking place at the time. Then, about two years ago, Osborn found some information locked away on flexisheets unearthed and decided to try and give it a go. Osborn and Stane wanted to create a piece of technology that could be implanted inside a human that would maximize the human’s abilities to their fullest – very much like the super-soldier project your father had been involved in. It never got to testing stage; the formula was unstable.” She put her hands on his shoulders and winced. “Aro Stark. _Tony_. You need to step back and relax. There’s no way you can get through all this information in time to start production back up—”

Silently, Tony handed her a reader. “Everything on here has been cleared – factories, projects, divisions, what-have-you. _This_ ,” he took a flexisheet he’d been scrawling on early into the morning, “This is the list of what gets shut down. There’s a very limited number of names – those people get fired for dealing my tech under the table. It’s not complete, but I did my best to clear all factories, projects, and people who are necessary to keep S.I. making a profit. Everything else is extraneous, and I’m looking very closely into all of them. I don’t like the direction Stane was taking us. I stopped making weapons three years ago, you know.”

“I do know,” Rumiko said, rubbing the tense muscles in his neck a few moments and then carding her fingers through his hair. “I had to deal with all the military representatives they sent. And let me tell you, they were all unhappy. But Stane seemed to believe he could find the right invention that would allow humans to manipulate the technology around him, and he managed to sell the idea to the Emperor. So let’s just say the Emperor is going to be unhappy if we don’t come through for him.”

Tony felt ice water rush through his veins. “Humans to manipulate technology?”

“Yes. Stane was working very closely with Oscorp on two projects: cyborgs, and linking the human brain into networks,” Rumiko said, patting Tony’s shoulder and then walking over to Happy. “Shall I bring you and your guard coffee? Breakfast?”

It was impossible. Stane hadn’t known the full extent of what Tony could do, Tony was _sure_ of it. That night six days ago had been – had been a fluke, had been Stane pushed too far, had been Stane not taking Tony’s ‘heart problem’ seriously. Stane couldn’t have known Tony’s new… enhancements.

Could he?

If he could… who would have _told_ him? And who else did Stane tell?

“Uh, actually, I think I can do the rest of this at my home,” Tony said, standing up and shutting down his consoles, the screens flickering out of life. “I’d feel safer, too, since I’m positive that at least _one_ of my board of directors knew about Stane’s plan, if not helped Stane. There’s no way that Stane could have done what he did without assurance that the board would back his play to become head of the company and not just remain the CFO and COO to whoever I put in my will to inherent my position. You ready to head home, Happy?”

“Of course, sir,” Happy said, standing up and shaking himself a little to get the kinks out of his back and neck.

Rumiko looked at him oddly, and then sighed. “Well. If you’re sure then.”

“I am,” Tony said easily, standing up and gathering the readers, flexisheets, and data chips he’d had Chen bring up to him over the course of the night. “By any chance, do you know _exactly_ what Stane was selling to the Emperor that had the military coming to you?”

“I thought you knew,” she said, gesturing to the pieces he was gathering. “A modification to the Parker project, of course. Termed to be a better success than the dubious Black Widow project. Cyborg humans that followed orders, utilized aspects of old Earth insects’ ability to heal and travel, and could hack and manipulate technological apparatuses wirelessly. Stane painted a pretty picture, I have to say, particularly to the military who’s always looking for ways to one-up the Sultanate. Though I doubted he could do half of what he said he could. Still, even half of what he promised would be an advancement from the current technology, and he managed to snag the Emperor’s attention. Osborn certainly thought he could do some of what he said he could, because we had a team of Osborn scientists working closely with our bio-interface team for a period of almost six months last year, until Osborn’s illness forced him to put the program on hold from his side. From what I understand, however, our division continued with the concept, readying to sync up to the Osborn team when Osborn had the leeway for riskier endeavors.”

“I want that division put on hold. Iced. Give the team paid leave, tell them that there’s a reshuffling doing, putting more cost-effective tech together. Give me a day and I’ll give them a concept similar to work forward that isn’t – that isn’t completely out there. If the Emperor’s representatives come sniffing around, tell him that I looked over the technology and think that Stane greatly overestimated the state of the current technology in the field that could make something like that happen, and while I’m doing everything I can to see where he got these claims from, I don’t think it’s possible, and I put the team on a more doable project,” Tony said briskly, trying to keep his hands from shaking.

“Is it?”

He turned to look at Rumiko, who was staring at him with narrowed eyes. When he didn’t respond, she repeated, “ _Is_ it impossible? Or do you just want to piss off the Emperor again because the Emperor allows slavers to operate within Imperial airspace?”

“Look at it this way, Rumiko – imagine we _could_ do it. Imagine we could create augmented humans who could be programmed, with no free will of their own to react to on-the-ground situations. Imagine not only were these humans part-cyborg, which would already give them a technological edge, but they could manipulate tech around them in order to complete whatever mission they’d been ordered to see through to the end. They could, with a thought, tell the air filtration in a city to stop working. They could lower the shields around any or all cities, just by thinking it. And not only that, but by incorporating Osborn’s technology, they could withstand the strength, speed, and skill of Black Widows. Maybe even surpass them. They’d be the best, most elite fighting force and there’d be no one to stop them. No _way_ to stop them. This technology may come about anyway, but it won’t come about by me. If the Emperor wants to fool around with genetic modifications – again – that’s his decision. It didn’t work so well with the Black Widows, and it won’t get any better with a second try. But I’m not creating a weapon like that, not when it puts every single citizen at risk because even with the Black Widow project, there were rogues. Think about what could happen if one of these new tech-controlling modified beings went rogue – the potential for disaster.”

He stopped his rant, panting, trembling even, when Happy came up and gently put a hand on Tony’s shoulders. “Mam Fujikawa, I’m pretty sure Aro Stark here hasn’t been to sleep yet. I’ll take him back home and make sure he rests – you just make sure the projects he wants frozen stay frozen.”

“Of course, Sir Hogan. Tony… get some rest.”

***

Tony couldn’t get some rest. He tried, for the past three days, and in the end, he couldn’t do it. He’d torn out the top part of his house and was having it entirely redone, because he couldn’t stand the reminder of the rooms that Obie had nearly killed him in, and he still… hoped that Steve would one day see him as something other than a killer.

And it would be hard to do that when the rooms still looked the same as when Steve had come up and killed the men that had been holding Peter hostage and killed Stane who had been pulling Tony’s heart out of his chest.

It was more than a ten-day since Steve had saved Tony’s life, and by now Peter, Pepper, and pretty much everyone else had stopped by Tony’s house to see how he was. Tony was rapidly running out of hope that Steve had come to his house that night because he was going to give Tony a positive answer. He’d chased after Steve, trying to get Steve to give him a positive answer. He’d known, of course, that it was Steve’s decision – but the only reasons Steve could give him for why they shouldn’t have a relationship was, in fact, that they were of different classes. That… was it. And Tony had been arrogant, maybe, but he’d been sure that showing his commitment to a relationship, that he wasn’t flighty and ‘slumming’ or ‘experimenting,’ that Steve would give in and agree to at least a date.

But Steve was the least of his problems. Granted, Steve was the biggest of _his_ problems, who kept most of Tony’s attentions, but Tony still needed to work through his company, needed to root out exactly how much Stane had found out about Tony’s heart pump and Tony’s implant, and how much Stane had told others about it. If the Emperor knew…

Tony had reverse-engineered his tech – barely. He’d put together his current implant with spit and a prayer to deities he no longer believed in, reaching for science that was light-years ahead what was possible, should have been impossible. He wasn’t sure how he did it, what particular line of code and nerve integration worked that allowed him to translate his brain synapses into an output that could more or less piggyback onto radio waves and electrical outputs, allowing him to control them as easily as he himself controlled his limbs via thought.

The easiest way to replicate it would be to hook it to a computer, take it out and look at the various wires, their ports, how they interfaced with his brain stem. But he couldn’t remove the implant, not without risking setting off the heart pump in his chest and imploding his body. Slavers removed the hearts of their captures and put in pumps that would explode should the slave leave the perimeter of the programmed confines. Tony had managed to prevent that from happening by building his implant, one that linked into his nervous system and uncoupled his pump from the slavers’ control panel. The problem with his implant was that he couldn’t in fact uncouple the implant from his nervous system without risking the probability of setting off the pump’s explosive aspects.

He’d managed a crude replica. The implant he managed to recreate was nowhere near as powerful or well-done as the one he had in his body, and he wasn’t sure if the neural implants would work the way he wanted them to, not without having an actual brain stem around to test it on – and he wasn’t about to start asking for volunteers. Initial tests showed that what he actually managed to create was an implant that would read signals and wavelengths of technology, but since he was unable to look closely at the code established in his own implant – even plugging himself into his computer banks, the failsafes he had put into place to keep the slavers from reading deep into the coding he was doing worked, and obscured most of the coding, leaving him to guess at what was supposed to go where – the replica could not really transfer human brain synapses into electrical or radio waves output, not cleanly and definitely not reliably. If plugged into a human’s nervous system, that human could conceivably become a receiver of technological outputs, though understanding said outputs depended wholly on the person’s prior knowledge, and interfacing and controlling those outputs was a hit or miss. Tony’s own implant could interpret all technological outputs and allow Tony quick access and interface with technological systems, even systems that he had never personally integrated with. Hell, his implant might even be able to reach out and interface with alien technology. How he managed to build it with the limited materials on hand…

It had to be because of Yinsen’s input. A genius far surpassing Tony himself, a scholar on his homeworld and a technological wizard, Yinsen had helped Tony clean up the code and program it, helped build the failsafes that Tony still couldn’t move past, had kept Tony alive and focused when the terror and torture Tony went through would have otherwise broken him.

And in return, Tony had gotten Yinsen killed…

With a frustrated snarl, he turned on the nearest screen and brought up the designs, tearing apart the model under his hands with nails and tools until he could begin to analyze each individual part.

He didn’t know how long he’d worked on it, but a small rattle of noise dragged his attention up, and he glanced towards the door to see Steve standing there.

Steve, looking tired and worn out and strangely happy. Tony’s heart caught in his throat.

“What – why are you here?” he asked, very carefully setting his project down.

Steve ducked his head and looked away, clearing his throat. “I – I wanted to apologize, for what I said. It was – cruel.”

Oh. Tony felt his heart contract, but he forced himself to nod, swallowing. Steve was an honorable man, and probably had wanted to absolve himself of calling Tony a killer. “Oh. Well. I’ve forgotten it already,” he forced out. “Don’t worry about it. Thank you for coming out—” he glanced at the console screen briefly and then blinked at the early hour. “Space-scum, Steve, it’s oh-one hundred! What are you doing here this late?”

Steve looked around the room, then squared his shoulders and walked up to Tony before pressing soft lips against Tony’s mouth. Then he stepped back and stared at Tony.

Tony’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. Distantly, he heard himself say, “Be very, very sure, Steve. I don’t like letting go.” He paused, and then decided to go all out. “I’m horrible. I talk too much and I’ll drive you insane and I need to take a bigger role in my company now that Stane’s gone and I want you so, so much.”

Steve smiled. “That’s fine by me.”

His voice was oddly calm, while Tony felt like he’d run a mile without ever moving an inch. With a growl, he shoved the tools away from himself and launched himself at Steve.

Steve let out a squawk and fell back on his ass.

“Not my most graceful, I assure,” Tony said, voice wrecked, “but it can be so, so much better.” He couldn’t stop himself from touching, from worming his hands under Steve’s shirt, peeling it off, grinding down against Steve’s crotch and felt smug when Steve bucked against Tony’s hips.

They writhed on the floor of Tony’s workshop, rubbing off on one another, and Tony had a vague thought about how he should take Steve to a bed, take Steve somewhere _soft_ at least, but he didn’t want to let this go, didn’t want to lose this chance, and so he squirmed his hands over Steve’s chest, kissed and kissed and kissed until all Steve could do was heave breaths desperately in, and Steve came with a beautiful whimper, eyes fluttering shut and rolling back, mouth open in a perfect O. Tony watched, almost okay with not having anything else happen, with just watching Steve come undone, but then Steve was gripping Tony’s hips tight, a hand moving from cupping Tony’s head to slithering beneath Tony’s waistband and gripping Tony’s cock, and that was all she wrote. Tony came like a freighter craft, hot and heavy and all of a sudden, back arching as he spilled in his pants like an adolescent.

When his breathing slowly returned to normal, lazily kissing Steve over and over again, whichever part of Steve he could reach, Tony muttered, “You know, I have a perfectly good couch a few feet away.”

Steve pulled away from Tony’s ears and grinned. “Well, then, why are we here?”

“I like how you think,” Tony said feverishly, kneeling up on Steve’s waist, still touching Steve reverently, well aware of how easily Steve could just… disappear.

Steve seemed to guess the direction of Tony’s thoughts, because he sat up, impossible muscles contracting, to press a kiss against Tony’s mouth. “I’m not going anywhere, Tony. I made this decision, and I’m sticking with it.”

“Good,” Tony said immediately. “That’s – that’s good.”

With a soft laugh, Steve shifted out from under Tony and looked over at the couch. “Do you really think we’ll fit?”

“I think we can damn well try,” Tony replied eagerly, already popping up to his feet and darting over to where lotion was crammed on top of the sink in the back of the room. “I really want to feel you inside me.”

Steve’s cheeks colored. “Oh,” he said faintly.

Coming back, Tony offered a hand to Steve. “C’mon, Steve. I’m clean – tested a long while back. But if protection is a make-it-or-break-it issue I have sterelizers on hand.”

“No, I – no, I trust you,” Steve said.

Tony kept his hand out, but Steve got up on his own and moved awkwardly – shyly, and damn that was adorable – to the couch. When he sat down on it, he looked back at Tony and he his face was so distinctly uncomfortable that Tony couldn’t help laughing.

Steve’s ears went red.

“No, no, don’t – it’s fine,” Tony chuckled, coming around the couch and stopping. “You should probably take off your pants, though. I’m going to.”

Before Steve could say anything to that – namely, no – Tony undid his pants the rest of the way and shoved them – and his sticking underclothing – down past his knees and stepped out of them at the same time he kicked off his shoes.

Blushing – and Tony was really amazed about how that blush traveled down in splotches over Steve’s chest and pecs – Steve stood up and shoved off his clothes, too. Then he sat down again and looked like he was ready to start twiddling his thumbs or something equally frustrating.

So Tony took matters into his own hands.

Lobbing the lotion onto the couch next to Steve, he walked forward, his cock already trying to twitch itself back into the game (it would take a while for it to get with the program, but Tony bet Steve would be back up and running soon enough). When he hit the couch, he went on to his knees, straddling Steve’s waist, hands running up over those broad shoulders and arms to caress and stroke. Lowering his lips against Steve’s, he murmured, “I can’t believe you’re really here.”

“I’m here,” Steve replied, hands tentatively resting against Tony’s waist.

Tony kept some space between him and Steve’s groin – he was trying to ease Steve into this, after all – and kept up with the heavy kissing and petting until Steve was making soft keening noises into his mouth and Steve’s hips were starting to jerk up. Then, Tony leaned to the side and picked up the lotion.

“Do you want to do the honors, or should I?” he breathed against spit-slick lips, nipping at the fullness of Steve’s lower lip and letting his hand drift down to brush against the crown of Steve’s dick.

Steve let out an embarrassing squeak that ended in a rumbling groan, and Tony took that to mean he should do it. Not that he had any problem with that at all – he quickly and deftly squirted some lotion onto his left hand and craned it back behind him even as he returned to teasing Steve, keeping the taller man on the edge.

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve growled, fingers clenching hard against Tony’s waist and making him grunt, hips bucking forward.

“Yeah, almost… almost there, Steve,” Tony panted, moving as quickly as possible before grabbing the bottle again and smearing an overly generous portion over Steve’s dick. Steve yelped a little bit at the texture and temperature, and then Tony was squatting down, lowering himself, aiming Steve’s cock right at his asshole.

Steve let out soft, hitching gasps, head thrown back and fingers digging into Tony’s flesh.

When Tony finally managed to seat himself, he let out a deep groan, letting his head drop down as he panted. “Ah, it’s been a while,” he murmured. “Shit. You are – scum, Steve – so scumming _thick_ —”

Either Steve had incredible timing, or Tony’s words prompted him, but Steve’s hips pumped up at that and Tony saw stars. With a gasp, Tony’s cock finally was back in the game, and Tony began to grind his hips against Steve, purring and panting as he angled his hips for maximum pleasure and loving the symphony of noises that poured out of Steve’s chest.

Steve was an incredibly loud and rewarding lover, and when he approached his climax he suddenly took over the pace, physically manhandling Tony’s body to jackhammer Tony down onto his thick dick, maneuvering Tony by the grip on Tony’s waist, and Tony let out a sob as Steve’s body went taut, spilled cum down Tony’s legs when it seeped out of Tony’s hole, and it took less than a few more seconds for Tony to jack himself just two or three times before he was coming as well.

Chest heaving, he laid against Steve’s front for a few minutes, trying to catch his breath, and Steve whispered, “Is it always this incredible?”

“I hope so,” Tony replied. “Though it might just kill me.”

***

Tony was… really, really hot. He felt sticky and gross, and his entire left arm was numb. It took him a few minutes to crack open one eyelid, but he couldn’t quite make sense out of what his brain was telling him. It looked like he was staring at the back of his synth-couch, the black material looking deceptively soft, but he could hear a thudding noise in his ear. And he was a lot higher than he should be, if he really was lying face-down on his couch.

He could also breathe clearer than he should be able to if his face really was crushed into the material of the couch.

Grumbling under his breath, he rolled to the side to give himself some air and suddenly he was falling, slamming into hard concrete, and his vision went black a moment, starbursts appearing behind his eyelids as his head bounced.

“Scum _sucker_ space _blast it_!” he snarled, hands coming up and cradling his head as he gingerly sat up, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears. Far more awake, he realized that Steve Rogers was asleep on his couch, naked except for socks. Tony glanced around and realized he was naked, too, though he’d been on top of Steve and the two of them had been beneath the old, worn blanket Tony kept in his workshop for the few (many) times he fell asleep on the couch. Said blanket was twisted around Tony’s lower body and he gingerly and carefully unwound it before draping it over Steve’s nakedness.

Then he went to locate his pants.

***

He was in the middle of cooking breakfast when JARVIS chimed inside his head, alerting him to Steve’s approach. It made it that much easier to not flinch when strong arms wrapped around his abdomen and a heavy weight pressed against his back. Tony loved touching, nothing was greater than that, but…

Yeah. He wasn’t going to think about Obie right now, not with last night’s _amazing_ sex on his mind.

“I didn’t think you could cook,” Steve mumbled against Tony’s ear.

Pushing past thoughts of Obadiah was actually easy when Steve rubbed his nose against the top of Tony’s ear and yawned widely, obviously half asleep and at ease next to Tony, his scent filling Tony’s nostrils and his very presence so different from Obadiah’s. Tension unknotted from his shoulders and Tony twisted a bit to catch Steve’s lips with his own, nipping a little. “I can cook. Not great, but I can cook. Go sit down; I can’t prop you up, mountain man.”

Obediently, Steve ambled towards the tiny kitchen table and slumped his large, muscled frame over the woefully inadequate sleek contraption. For a moment, Tony did nothing but stare fondly, looking at a sleepy Steve half curled over the top of the table, and then he turned back to the food on the stove.

“So,” Steve mumbled quietly, and Tony paused his movements ever so slightly before turning off the heat and moving to his storage unit and pulling out something to drink.

When Steve didn’t continue, Tony pulled plates down from the cupboard and dished out the egg and cheese mess with random vegetables scattered in – not quite scrambled eggs, but not with enough shape to be an omelet – before moving over to the table and setting the food and glass of juice down on the table. “So?” he asked, grabbing himself a cup of coffee.

“We need to talk about… this.” Steve poked uncertainly at the food with his fork, not meeting Tony’s eyes, and Tony could almost swear his heart pump had stuttered in its rhythm.

(It hadn’t. If it had, he’d have died.)

“About what? I thought I made it clear – very clear – that I wanted to try a relationship with you. And then when you came last night, at oh-one, I made it clear again – I don’t want to let go.” Tony took a controlled sip from his cup, letting the bitter flavor coat his tongue and hit the back of his throat in an almost-scalding wave before saying roughly, “Unless you want me to let go, of course.”

Steve blinked at Tony in confusion. “Why would I – no, Tony. No, I meant what I said last night. I’m sure. I want – to try this. But the thing is…” He hesitated, gnawing on his lip.

Tony could remember their last conversation, down to the sight of Steve covered in blood and the dim sunlight reflecting off of the lake as Tony admitted his darkest secret, the deaths on his conscience, and Steve listening with a blank face. “You’re not okay with a killer.”

Steve flinched, but to his credit he didn’t do anything else. After a long moment’s silence, where Tony could swear his non-existent heart was trying to burn through his chest cavity, Steve cleared his throat and said, “I need to figure some stuff out. So I’d like to try… dating. If that’s okay. Slow steps. And I figure you being… well, I figure it’s better that we don’t make a big deal out of it. Like – we’re not going to _hide_ it. But I don’t want to – to trumpet it to the world, either.”

“Right.” Tony licked his lips, and his throat felt raw. “Well. Okay, when do you want our first… date to be?”

“We could catch a holo-feat at the tainment-plex? After my shift on Third-Day?” Steve said hopefully.

Tony bit back his disappointment and uneasiness. “Sure thing,” he said, trying not to think about his attempts to recreate the implant, to give the Emperor something less dangerous than the promised Parker project, trying not to think about his blood-soaked past. “Should I come pick you up?”

“I think we can meet up at the tainment-plex,” Steve replied, voice warm. “Thank you Tony, for understanding.”

“I try.”

They turned back to their food, the mood in the kitchen suddenly awkward and stilted. It was almost a relief when Steve said that he had the late shift at the library that day, he needed to head back to his apartment and clean up, and left within the next thirty minutes or so. Tony wandered aimlessly about his house a while, unable to really focus. He hadn’t explained what he wanted to, hadn’t laid all his cards out on the table. He wanted – he wanted a _relationship_ , something he didn’t have a lot of practice with, and he was pretty certain relationship meant sharing, meant communication. Only Steve wanted to take things slow. Small steps.

(Tony might be wrong – not a lot of experience with relationships after all – but wasn’t sex a big step?)

Tony supposed he couldn’t blame Steve – the Stark name was pretty big, and it would be under even more scrutiny what with Ob – with Stane’s death, the Emperor’s attention, and the new weapon line Stane had promised the public even if Tony was going to have to come out with something a little different than what Stane had pronounced. Hanging around Tony would only get the cameras and spotlight on Steve, and Steve had done his absolute best to fade into the background after he bought out his contract with the military.

And Steve seemed really hung up about – about the killing thing. Tony tried not to let it bother him, but it did, it _did_. It made him second-guess everything, wonder if there had been a variable he overlooked, a scenario he hadn’t run, _something_ that would have kept him from killing all the other slaves aboard that slaving ship.

In any case. Steve was busy. He was trying to deal with the – the killing thing. He didn’t like Tony’s social class. He also wanted a quiet life. Tony was the opposite of all three of those things. So it made – it made sense, that Steve wanted to keep this slow. That Steve didn’t want Tony doing anything big. That Steve wanted something simple, or as simple as he could get considering his life and Tony’s life.

So. No discussion about anything serious, not right off the bat. Steve had only just acceded to dating Tony in the first place – the last thing Tony wanted was to drive Steve away.

The important thing would be to fix up the problems S.I. had, make it so that those things wouldn’t have to bother Steve in the first place. And hey, maybe if he could get his shit together, Steve would be more open to making this an official relationship rather than a booty call and then the odd date late at night when not a lot of people could see them around.

Fixing this, though, required not only figuring out how deep Stane’s tendrils had wormed into his company, but what exactly he could create and offer to the Emperor to get the government off his back while simultaneously not letting on about the level of tech actually available. That would be made more complicated considering that Stane and Osborn had apparently been working closely together, and Osborn – a sharp scientist himself – had not only believed the spiel Stane had given but had believed it enough to back it up with money and a team of top-of-the-line researchers and equipment. It’d be hard to fool Osborn or falsify Stane’s facts in a way that Osborn would accept – and if Osborn didn’t accept it, the Emperor would find out that Osborn knew Tony was hiding something, and then it would be good-bye S.I. and goodbye Tony Stark.

Which meant Tony certainly had his work cut out for him.

First things first, though; he needed to figure out the basis of Stane’s promises. They seemed to hinge on a certain formula – something he was currently trying to figure out. It was only half written, and so it made it exceedingly difficult. Tony knew what it needed to do, of course – it needed to splice human and animal DNA – but the formula used in the Black Widows had been lost, the next successful attempt (Rogers) had also been a wash, with no movement towards human testing again.

(He really should be focusing on figuring out what was going on with his implants, why his limbs felt so heavy all the time now, but the faster he got the Emperor’s eye off him, the more likely Steve would be amenable to being with Tony. Right?)

He wasn’t aware of how much time had passed since Steve had left and he had finally settled in front of Stane and Osborn’s research, but a small voice piped up, “That’s an incomplete formula, isn’t it?”

Tony turned and felt warmth fill up his chest as he saw Peter in the doorway to his workshop. “Hey there, spider-kid.”

“Hey, Tony,” Peter replies, but his words are distracted, and he points again at the holographic writing on the far wall – the area that Tony had uploaded Osborn’s scientists’ notes, back at the beginning when he’d been just uploading everything he had and sorting it out by Osborn’s bio- and neurological sciences and Stane’s cyberkinetic and nanite technology fields. He’d focused in on what Stane had managed to cobble together based off of what Stane _suspected_ Tony had – so, as Tony had expected, it was as far off the mark as he had thought it must be – and had ignored, for the most part, Osborn’s team’s input.

“I wouldn’t know, slip, that’s not my expertise,” Tony replied, setting aside the holographics he’d been manipulating and moving over to that area of the room. “Which formula?”

Peter pointed up at the decay formula, one of the last stabilizing influences in the long line of formulas in place to clean up the biological system after pumping it flush of mechanics and metal and toxic chemicals. “This is only half done,” he said.

Tony flicked his eye quickly over the long line of numbers and variables. He wasn’t an expert in the biological sciences – he focused on mechanics and chemicals, zipping through his tracks as a child and graduating at an extremely young age to enter the corporate world with Stane at his side – but even he could see, running calculations in his head, that there would be leftover numbers and an unbalanced equation if this was one of the last formulas. “How do you know that?” he asked, bemused.

“Because the whole formula is on an old reader I found in an old trunk that was my dad’s,” Peter replied.

“Did you now?” Tony said. “Say, do you think you could get it for me?”

***

“Look, Ru, I get you don’t want to deal with the Emperor’s military representatives, but—”

“Aro Stark, I think you are _grossly_ understating my unwillingness to push off representatives of our _government_ when we are, in fact, in contract with them to create a weapon—”

Tony flipped the compound he was fooling with on its side to see if he could manipulate its connections to the nanites. “Ru, they’ll get a weapon. Okay? I’ll design one more scragheap of a weapon and I’ll scragging present it to them at the end of the month, if they could just give me _two weeks_ —”

“They are very specific about what they are looking for and if you think you can slap together another bomb model and expect they’ll be happy, let me tell you, Aro Stark, our contract is very specific and if we don’t fulfill the different aspects of the contract—”

“It’ll _be_ fulfilled, you worry too much, Rumiko, honestly—”

“What are you doing?”

Tony felt his spine stiffen, and even as Rumiko began berating him about how he wasn’t supposed to be in a public space, this was business call, classified contracts weren’t supposed to be discussed where anyone could hear, but he absently said, “Sorry, Ru, I’ve got to go, but don’t worry, okay? Just – send the reps here next time, and I’ll show them that I’ve got something to fill the letter of the contract, if not the original intent, because what Stane promised is _not possible_.”

With that, he flicked off the communicator with a thought and turned to Steve, who was leaning on the doorframe of the workshop. “Hey there!” he said. “Working on a biological concept I’m stumped by. What’s up?”

Steve came forward, pressing a kiss against Tony’s mouth that Tony fell into hungrily, but then he pulled back to say, “I didn’t know you were designing for your company again. All the media nets said you’d stepped back from S.I.”

“Yeah, well… that was a mistake,” Tony muttered, tugging at Steve’s shirt to try and get him back down for another kiss. “I’m now overseeing all projects, making sure Stane didn’t leave anything in my company I don’t want.”

Steve smiled warmly. “That’s ace-mode, right? I know – the media nets reported that when you came back, you swore you’d never make a weapon again. Were they right?”

Tony’s stomach felt like it suddenly turned to lead, but he kept his smile up. “Yeah, more or less. I said I’d never design a weapon again for anyone.”

“That’s ace, then. There’s so much money to be had in other markets – prosthetics, for one. That arm you made for Bucky is absolutely ace.” Steve tilted his head towards the door. “I brought dinner. Was that someone you work with?”

“She’s – Rumiko’s my personal assistant. She oversees S.I. Shanghai, which is really the head of all branches of S.I. on-planet,” Tony explained. “She was – reminding me of a contract Stane made that’s legally binding, that I have to find some way of filling.”

Steve paused. “If you’re busy, Tony, I can come back another time. I don’t want to make any trouble for—”

“No, this is great! I’m fine!” Tony said immediately, latching on to Steve’s elbow and walking quickly up to the kitchen. “We’re good! I’ve got two weeks to – to fill the contract, that’s more than enough time.”

“It’s about – the biological sciences?” Steve asked curiously. “Peter loves that field.”

Tony kept his face down to hide his wince – Peter had come over for the past two days in a row, both of them breaking apart what the scientists from Oscorp had come up with and how it fit in with the formula Peter had produced on an outdated reader. While Tony was a big believer in letting kids help where they wanted to help, Steve wouldn’t exactly be happy to know that Peter was here helping unlock the secrets Osborn and Stane had been colluding on, especially when those secrets were intended to create a biological weapon. “He does,” he remarked nonchalantly.

Steve paused in the entryway to the kitchen. “Tony – you’re not having _Peter_ help you work on this project, are you?”

“If I am?” Tony asked, slightly defensive.

Huffing a sigh, Steve shook his head. “He’s a kid, Tony, he shouldn’t be working on something that most likely is a classified project for – for medicine, or whatever. What if he makes a mistake? It’s too much to put on a kid.”

“If he makes a mistake, our reviewers will catch it. Besides, he wants to work on it and he’s smart enough to grasp the concepts. I thought you were all about challenging students to aim high?” Tony asked, and he wondered when he’d started going on the defensive, when having Steve over meant dancing carefully around every word he wanted to say and every idea he expressed.

“There’s wanting to challenge a kid and setting them up for failure. This is top-level science, and Peter’s in _sixth form_.” Steve sighed. “He’s a bright kid, but I don’t want him ignoring his end of the year projects for this, and I don’t want him stressing over it either.”

With a deep inhale, Tony stepped away from Steve and shook his head. “It’s a fun project for him, one that he’s interested in. If you really think he’s not completing his work on time, I’ll put a stop to it, but the kid loves it, Steve, and frankly, you’re not his parent. Until his aunt comes over and tells me that she doesn’t want him fooling around with this, he’s free to help out.”

For a moment, Tony was afraid Steve would keep arguing, that this was the time Tony pushed it too far, that Steve was finally going to drop Tony like he probably should have done from the very beginning, but then Steve let out a sigh. “You’re right. I just worry, is all. Come on and eat; we could watch a stim later, if you want?”

Tony smiled and let the uneasiness of the situation disappear as they both stepped away from the topic. Crisis averted, and Steve wasn’t mad at Tony. Tony counted that as a win.

***

“I don’t want Peter coming here anymore.”

Tony stared at the diminutive woman on his doorstep. JARVIS had told him there was a guest at the door, someone who wasn’t granted free access to the building, which had forced Tony to break away from a very important part in his work, and it was because… what, Steve had gone to Peter’s aunt and tattled?

“I’m sorry, Zhu Parker, what are you upset about?” Tony asked, feeling a headache pulse behind his eyes and a tremor start in his limbs.

“I don’t know what you and Peter are working on,” the woman said pointedly, “and I don’t care. He’s asking questions – about his uncle, about his father. He’s too young to deal with any of it. You will not be seeing him around and I think you are becoming a bad influence on him.”

“Steve put you up to this, didn’t he?” Tony asked before he could think and censor himself, ask or say that in a nicer way.

As it was, her eyes narrowed, steel-grey hair pulled tight against her skull and her arms folded defensively. “No, no one put me up to this. You’re asking questions, Aro Stark, questions that should be left alone if Peter is to have any hope of living a normal life.”

It dawned on him what she meant.

“You’re upset that I’ve been looking into Peter’s dad’s death? And the death of his uncle?” he asked incredulously. “That’s – why is that a bad thing? Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Because, Aro Stark, you’re going to make Peter’s life worse than it already is,” she said flatly. He was studying her closely, watching her to look for tells or _something_ to explain what she was going on about, and she honestly believed what she was saying. “Peter’s already dealt with the loss of his father and mother and uncle. You don’t need to put _his_ life at risk, too.”

“I – I thought you’d want their killers brought to justice!” Tony said defensively. “How was I supposed to know you, you didn’t want anyone trying to find out about them!”

Peter’s aunt – Tony vaguely remembered her name began with an ‘m’ – stared Tony down until he began to feel uncomfortable. Then, she said in a clipped voice, “I know exactly why my husband, my brother-in-law, and my sister-in-law died. They died because the information they had was dangerous, and I don’t know why you’re looking in to their research but you’re not going to get my nephew killed, Aro Stark. I forbid it.”

With that, she turned on her heel and left down the path.

For a long moment, Tony watched her, shocked and more than a little bemused. Then her words sunk in, and he struggled to drag air into his lungs. Peter was – okay, Peter was a kid, but he was one of the three friends Tony actually had in this town, and he didn’t know how to tell Peter that they couldn’t work on their project together.

But her belief – that someone had had her and Peter’s family killed – made a lot of sense, too. Why else would a top researcher for Osborn disappear, along with his wife, and no real, concerted effort made to find their killer? Why else would Peter’s uncle, summoned to hand over any personal effects his brother, Peter’s father, had left to his son, Peter? Why else would all of this happen?

Someone wanted the decay formula Peter had stored in his mind, which meant Tony had to back off on it and let it either fade away from Peter’s mind or be filed away for a later date.

Tony stubbornly refused to think about what it would mean to lose Peter’s presence in his home and in his workshop. Instead, he began crafting a personalized message gently telling Peter that his aunt had some concerns about Peter’s end-of-the-year projects, and how if Peter concentrated on his other academics, he would be successful and move up to the next year.

Tony was a big boy. He could handle it on his own.

***

“You’re acting a lot different,” Rhodey remarked disapprovingly.

“I’m acting _responsible_ ,” Tony replied, pointing at Rhodey with his spanner. “Turning over a new leaf. Steve loves it.”

Rhodey narrowed his eyes. “That’s another thing. I’ve never seen you tone yourself down for anyone, Tony.”

“Maybe that’s why all my relationships failed,” Tony replied back, voice hard. “I’m not losing Steve, Rhodey, not because you suddenly think I’m not – what, belligerent enough for you?”

Rhodey sighed and sat down on the workbench next to Tony. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.” He stopped speaking for a moment, and then his voice was mildly calm when he said, “How long has that been happening?”

“Pretty much since I started dating Steve,” Tony said. “I made the choice to act more responsible, so—”

“Not that – though that’s worrying in and of itself,” Rhodey said immediately. “ _That_.”

Tony looked down at what he was holding – and at the very obvious shaking of his hands that made his work so difficult nowadays. He was coming up on his two-week limit, Rumiko had already told him that the representatives would be there in eight days, and Steve hanging around his place more often made it hard to work secretly on the design and prototype that would fill the legal conditions placed in the contract Stane had made with the military. He wasn’t sleeping right, he was finding all sorts of nasty things in Peter’s history that he couldn’t share with his young friend, and to top it all off, the implant in his brain was slowly poisoning his nerves.

“That’s just stress, Rhodey, sugarbear. Haven’t been sleeping a lot, haven’t been eating a lot. You know me,” Tony said easily. “I just need to complete this prototype and then I can take a break.”

“Tony,” Rhodey said slowly, and his voice was low and concerned as he put one large hand against Tony’s back, the heat of it seeping into Tony’s muscles and making him feel safer than he had in a long while. “Tony, I’ve seen you after an engineering jag that lasted for a week in which you didn’t sleep and lived off of coffee. I’ve never seen your hands get like that.”

“Getting old does things to you, you know that,” Tony replied glibely.

Rhodey shook his head. “You’re in the prime of your life and you know it,” he shot back. “Tony. I am your best friend. What’s going on here?”

Looking around at the workshop, at his own personal projects – trying to recreate the implant out of less dangerous metals, for one, and an automated bodyguard he could mentally control via his implant if he was ever paralyzed by a lunatic out to kill him again – at Osborn’s biological jabber, at the nanite technology Stane had poured countless amounts of money into, at the prosthetic in his hands that was the rough prototype of the cyberkinetic parts Stane had want to assemble into a cyborg, Tony took a deep breath in. “I’m handling it, Rhodey. I know what I’m doing.”

Rhodey stared at him a long moment before nodding carefully. “Alright, Tones. I’m always just a comm-call away. You know that, right?”

Tony smiled, feeling it stretch his mouth and tighten unnaturally on his face. “I know, Rhodes. Thanks.”

***

“You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, do you?”

Tony froze at the front counter of Fury’s stimulant café and stared at the powerful, one-eyed man glaring back at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he finally said, voice faint.

Fury snorted and pointed a commanding finger at the table nearest the counter. “Sit your pale skip down and drink that up and give me _time_ to cool down so I can talk at you without slapping you.”

Tony looked down at the drink in his hand. “This isn’t what I ordered,” he said, feeling disconnected from his body.

“You’re scragging right it’s not. You don’t need more stimulants running in the hopped up oil you call blood in your veins. You need to take a seat and take a breather before I _make_ you.”

Stunned more than anything, Tony slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, staring morosely at the mellow, bitter beverage that would calm more than give him the jolt he needed to go on his date with Steve. For a long moment, he just sat there, blinking, trying to figure out when his life turned into a series of people ambushing him and pushing him into corners he never wanted to be in the first place.

…Probably around the same time that he got caught by those slavers because Stane sold him out, he realized.

It was when he got his second breath and his feet under him that he realized the front of the shop was suspiciously clear of people and Fury was coming from out behind the counter to sit down across from Tony and fold his arms.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Tony began, which was when Fury let out a bark of laughter.

“I don’t know what _I’m_ doing?” Fury said pointedly. “You’re the little shit who is running around like a headless chicken. _I’m_ trying to help your sorry ass.”

Tony laughed and stood up, aware his laugh was bitter and strained. “Look, it’s nice you think you can help, but honestly—”

“My name is Nicholas Fury, director of SHIELD.”

Tony gaped at Fury and sat down hard. “You’re – you’re the Director of – but – you can’t be, you’ve been here since…”

Since Tony had moved to Catskill.

“Admittedly, I’m not full director at the moment. In fact, my promotion to director is contingent on making sure you are both safe and sane. And let me tell you, I was looking forward to stepping down and letting Thor take over ownership of this little place when you went and pulled this shit.” Fury leveled an accusing finger at Tony. “I don’t much appreciate you making this assignment longer than it has to be.”

“What – what _assignment_?” Tony asked, outrage mounting as he clenched his fingers around the plasti-cup, the material crunching in around his fingers. In his head, he could suddenly feel the constant white noise of machines working with one another get much louder, much closer, and the light at the far end of the café flickered.

“I was supposed to investigate you, and by extension, Stane, because S.I.’s weapons were showing up in the hands of outlaws, slavers, and guerilla fighters around the globe. When it was revealed that Stane was pulling these tricks, and that he died trying to attack you, my assignment was pretty much done. You would finish off Stane’s dangerous projects, continue the beneficial ones, and the Emperor wouldn’t need to worry about the smartest mind on engineering being compromised. And then you come back from your trial and immediately hole yourself up in your house – which you begin tearing apart around your ears – and the only people you let close are the kid of a former defector and a librarian who is one of the most expensive failures of the military’s cyber-organic operations. The Emperor is understandably concerned. Me, I’m more worried about _you_ – you look like you’ll drop dead in a few hours if you don’t get something substantial in you and take a break.”

“Everyone,” Tony said with deliberate slowness, “seems so scragging concerned now, and I have to say, I’m scragging _sick_ of their concern.”

Pushing away from the table, Tony stalked out of the café and down the street before he could pull in a decent breath again.

He was shaking, fingers trembling, and now he realized he’d gripped the plasti-cup so tight it had gushed out of the top and down his hand, and he hadn’t even noticed. He shouldn’t have left his house. He should have just stayed and finished up the last touches on the weapon design – because the sooner he got it out, the sooner he didn’t have to worry about Steve finding him working on a weapon design, and the sooner he could go back to figuring out what he could make the implant out of that wouldn’t have this side effect of a buildup of toxins in his brain.

“Hey, Stark, I didn’t expect to see you around.”

Tony looked up to see Bucky Barnes, Steve’s best friend. He’d made the guy a prosthetic arm, a much improved model than what the scummer doctors could give. Nodding at Barnes, he said, “Yeah, I – wanted some fresh air. To move around, a bit.”

“You’ve been hanging out with Steve a lot. I know Steve’s finally got his head on straight, but let me be clear – I don’t want Steve hurt, okay? When you finally get together and everything, be careful? He’s not had a good time of it, relationship-speaking.” Barnes clapped a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “You should probably come around once or twice, let me get to know you. Let Steve’s friends get to know you.”

Tony nodded pleasantly, inwardly seething that not even _Barnes_ , the man who lived with Steve Rogers, knew that Tony and Steve had already had sex and were already trying to build a relationship with one another. He and Steve would have words, later.

“Well, that’s good to know, but really, I need to get back to work, so if you’d excuse me,” Tony said, taking long steps and then flagging down one of the few taxi crafts they had in the relatively small city.

***

“Bucky told me he ran in to you today – Tony, are you okay?”

Tony looked up from the completed prototype he was carefully packing away in a box, detailed instructions in a data chip sitting beside his elbow. He knew he was shaking, that he looked like death warmed over, but he seriously needed to get this last bit done and send it off to Rumiko to get the military representatives off her back. “I’m fine,” he croaked.

“You don’t look fine,” Steve murmured, coming over to Tony’s side – and Tony really wasn’t fine, really, not if he didn’t think to close down the holographics floating in front of him that detailed the schematics of the prototype. But Tony didn’t close down the holographics, and Steve stiffened.

“Tony, those look like… weapon blueprints,” he said calmly.

Tony let out an explosive sigh. “That’s because they are,” he finally said shortly. “The military and S.I. have a contract that is legally binding, and I needed to fulfill it, so I did—”

“Tony – is _this_ what you’ve been busy on? All this time? After I went on about how it’s good your company doesn’t need to do weapons anymore, after everything, you’ve had _Peter_ down here before, that’s not a safe environment—!”

Tony shoved away from Steve, throwing his arms out expansively, knowing his fingers were shaking, his body was aching, but he really didn’t care at the moment. “I know, Rogers!” he snarled. “I scumsucking _know_ what you think of me, and what you think of my weapons, but I don’t really have a choice if I want my company from going under but if you think it’s bad having to make the scragging things, imagine trying to hide it away from you and work on it _in the spare time I have_ that isn’t currently wrapped up in you or my own projects or figuring out what the hell happened to Peter’s family, and I just don’t have the scumming time to do everything on my plate—”

Steve’s face was flushed. “I’m sorry I’m such a _burden_ ,” he said heatedly. “I thought you said you didn’t want to let me go—”

“And I _don’t_ but I can’t be good enough for you, I can’t keep holding my tongue and my opinions and just letting you lead, that _isn’t me_ , since _when_ do you know that I sit back and let others do my talking, I _can’t do this anymore_ —”

The ringing in his ears suddenly reached a crescendo, and before he had even realized what that could mean, blackness shot out and slapped him down.

***

“— _why_ this is happening—”

“—sedated quickly, before something else—”

“—implant can’t be removed, but I think—”

“—have to be isolated, with what goes on when he’s in a—”

Tony swam back up to consciousness, bits and pieces of old conversations floating around in front of him. Before him, in a small chair, Steve was sleeping, his large body spilling over the tiny piece of furniture. Tony smiled crookedly and opened his mouth to say something.

The computer next to him began typing the words Tony wanted to say.

Startled, Tony tried again – this time, all the machines around him went haywire.

Shouting outside the door had Steve jerking upright, his hand gripping Tony’s, and suddenly Tony was in his own body again, his hoarse voice gasping, “What’s going on? Steve, what’s going on?” even as medical personnel spilled into the room.

“He’s fine,” Steve said to everyone, and his voice was torn and worn, eyes bloodshot. “We’re good. Tony was just – a little confused.”

Things were still moving too fast for Tony to understand, and he stared pleadingly at Steve as the doctor checked Tony’s chart, the nurse adjusted something or the other, and then the nurses and doctor exited the room. When they left, Steve let out a huff and turned to look at Tony.

“You’ve been in the hospital for almost a week. The Emperor’s pleased with whatever toy you made them—” and wow, didn’t Steve sound bitter, “—but you pushed yourself to the point of collapsing. You have heavy metal poisoning of a kind none of the doctors or specialists know, and you _don’t get to scare me like that again_.”

Tony weakly ran his thumb over the back of Steve’s hand. “Didn’t – didn’t mean to. Steve, I _had_ to make that, it isn’t even a weapon, I—” His voice ran out and he began coughing, feeling all his limbs tremble.

Steve pressed a chip of ice against his lips. “I – we’ll have to discuss that. Okay? I believe you but, Tony, if … I’m not trying to make you into someone I like. I fell in love with you as you were.”

“Called me killer,” Tony rasped.

Steve frowned. “I did not.”

Tony nodded.

Steve tilted his head and then his eyes narrowed. “If you mean,” he said, and his face was stern even as his voice was exasperated, “that day at the lake, Tony, I was calling _myself_ a killer. I didn’t want to – to get together when I could hurt you at any point.”

Tony stared at Steve in shock. “Am I supposed to feel bad,” he croaked, “that you saved my life? Are _you_ supposed to feel bad?”

“No – Tony, that’s not what I meant—”

“That’s what it sounded like,” Tony wheezed.

Steve licked his lips and sighed. “No, I’m not sorry I stopped Aro Stane. I just… I just needed to get my head together, come to terms with it. That’s all. But you’re not distracting me from this – the Emperor’s very interested in you, now, and now everyone knows I’m with you, and I’m just… a little overwhelmed. And hurt – that you didn’t tell anyone, but that you didn’t tell _me_ , what’s wrong.”

There was silence for a minute, and then Steve murmured, “Can you tell me what’s wrong, now?”

And, well. Tony had wanted to lay all his cards out in front of Steve that very first night. So he cleared his throat and began, “When – when slavers catch someone they want, they take out their heart and put in a bomb. Well, with me…”

It wasn’t perfect. It surely wasn’t ideal. But Tony felt himself get lighter the more he explained, and Steve didn’t look – disgusted, or shocked. And maybe, maybe, Tony hadn’t screwed this up as badly as he’d thought.


End file.
